


Secondary

by Thunderhel



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 07:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16698343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderhel/pseuds/Thunderhel
Summary: “I feel like I don’t even know myself, you know? Like that sketch I told you about. Like…Like God or the universe or whatever had this idea of what I’m supposed to be and then they just…never filled it in. And now I’ve gotta fill it in myself and that’s bullshit.” She rubbed at her eyes before parting her fingers again. “Do you ever feel that way? Or am I just going insane?”Johnson moved in what may have been a shrug. “I think that’s fairly common. Especially with secondary characters, like there’s a plot and an end game and you’re a part of it but you’re not the focus so all your details tend to get a little fuzzy beyond the basics.”Lardo blinked hard, it felt like she hadn’t done that in a while. After a moment of deliberation she sat back up on her elbows to look at him. “I’m a secondary character?”





	Secondary

**Author's Note:**

> **  
> [Originally posted on tumblr.](http://dexondefense.tumblr.com/post/180333069402/me-asks-everyone-to-send-me-rarepair-prompts)  
>  **

The story, as it currently stood, was rather loosely constructed. At least, that was how it always felt to Lardo, like something in her timeline and her realm of existence hadn’t been solidified, an incomplete sketch or a painting that had been outlined but never actually finished. She could blame it on the weed she could feel burning in her lungs, but the reality of the situation was she was smoking in the first place to blame that feeling on something, to give a reason to the feeling burning low in her chest. It was highly possible she was just being pretentious but she was an artist so she didn’t think anyone could fault her that.

Beside her she felt more than heard the rumble of a laugh. “I don’t think that’s pretentious.”

Lardo hadn’t quite processed that she had been speaking out loud, and even now wasn’t sure how much she had even said. Not that it really mattered. “Yeah? What if I told you I was thinking about writing some slam poetry about it, hm?” She challenged, lifting her chin in defiance. “Gonna present it at Annie’s about how much more deep and meaningful my life is than everyone else’s.” Lardo pitched her voice low in a terrible imitation of what she assumed was a posh British accent, and was rewarded by Johnson’s soft breezy laugh once again. It was nice sound, Lardo had decided early on. It was only a little louder than a sigh, a breathed out almost forgotten sort of sound that raised the hairs up on the back of your neck in a way that wasn’t entirely terrible.

Sometimes, in that hazy time halfway between too late and too early and teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, Lardo thought she heard someone say her name. Just a breath of a word, created by her subconscious for reasons unknown that always left her feeling a little uneasy. The first time she had ever heard Johnson talk, his voice somehow able to carry across a room but always sound almost a whisper at the same time, she had thought it sounded like that 3 in the morning voice. Lardo had a private joke with herself that Johnson himself might be the Haus ghost. It was a ridiculous and borderline hilarious thought to have, so she kept it to herself.

When she propped herself up on one elbow to grin down at him, he shifted as well, crossing his arms behind his head. He still had that stupid baseball hat on, the brim pulled down low enough that she couldn’t quite see his eyes. It was dark on the lawn, they hadn’t even bothered to turn on the porch lights before throwing themselves down in the grass that probably should have been mowed two weeks ago. Still, through the dark and his seemingly constant desire to keep himself out of sight and out of mind, Lardo could tell when Johnson looked at her.

“I think poetry is more like Nursey’s thing. You’d be stepping into his territory there.”

Lardo laughed, not because it was a particularly funny thing to say, but because her body just seemed to want her to. “Who’s Nursey?”

Johnson titled his head and shifted again. “Ah, that’s next year, isn’t it? Or are we two out from that?” He sighed, sounding entirely too world weary for a collegiate athlete. “Fuck, I can’t keep the timelines straight. They keep breaking off and circling back. What year is it?”

Had Lardo been sober, that question might have been more concerning that she currently found it. As it stood, the only thing she could focus on was the downward tilt of his mouth. The image of it seemed to be expanding until it was all she could look at.

“Stop doing that,” she instructed, realizing a moment later with delayed interest that she was poking him in the cheek.

Her unorthodox approach worked in her favor, as she was rewarded only a moment later with that breezy laugh once again. “Sorry. Weed gives me a pretty good excuse to be as open as I want about this shit.”

“What shit?”

“The narrative as a whole.”

“That’s deep,” she concluded. “Weird, but deep. I guess.”

“Thank you for your never ending support.”

Lardo let herself fall back to the grass with a soft huff. Just like before, nothing was particularly funny about the current situation, but her body didn’t seem to care about that, as another round of giggles fell from her lips. She covered her face with body hands as she dissolved into cackling. “Oh, god, this is stupid.”

“What is?”

She didn’t move her hands, but spread her fingers wide enough that she could see the stars through the space they made. Above them she could make out the Big Dipper. Or maybe the one farther to the left was the Big Dipper. Maybe there were two Big Dippers. Maybe she should have paid more attention in astronomy class in high school. Wait, had she even taken an astronomy class in high school?

“Everything,” she concluded after processing his question three more times in her head. “I feel like I don’t even know myself, you know? Like that sketch I told you about. Like…Like God or the universe or whatever had this idea of what I’m supposed to be and then they just…never filled it in. And now I’ve gotta fill it in myself and that’s bullshit.” She rubbed at her eyes before parting her fingers again. “Do you ever feel that way? Or am I just going insane?”

Johnson moved in what may have been a shrug but she was too busy staring up at what might have been a third Big Dipper to tell. “I think that’s fairly common. Especially with secondary characters, like there’s a plot and an end game and you’re a part of it but you’re not the focus so all your details tend to get a little fuzzy beyond the basics.”

Lardo blinked hard, it felt like she hadn’t done that in a while. After a moment of deliberation she sat back up on her elbows to look at him.

“I’m a secondary character?”

Johnson shifted his head, eyes still obscured, but she knew he was watching her again.

“Yeah, we all are.”

The grass beneath her fingers was cool against her skin, and just the point of damp that she could tell it was but didn’t feel wet. It gave easily when she tightened her grip. “I don’t want to be a secondary character,” she said it out loud, but her head was swimming with something that felt stronger than the blunt they had smoked and she wasn’t sure she had.

Johnson made a sound, something caught between a sigh and an soft ‘oh’, that she wasn’t sure what it was meant to convey. Then he was shifting too, rising up onto his elbows in a mirror of her. “Being a secondary character doesn’t mean you’re not important, or your story doesn’t matter. It’s just…not the main plot line.”

Lardo blinked, feeling very much like she was far too sober for this conversation.

Johnson cleared his throat, and an uncomfortable Johnson was not something Lardo was accustomed to. It didn’t seem right for him to be uncertain of himself, Johnson seemed to have a better grip on reality than anyone had any right to. Listening to him for too long, especially when she wasn’t sober, was almost an unsettling experience.

“It’s not…I didn’t mean it as an insult.” He bumped his shoulder gently against hers. “Being a secondary character isn’t so bad. You’ve got less expectations you know? Less pressure.” He tilted his head back, and for a moment she thought she could see his eyes. “You can be whoever and whatever you want and there’s no limit.”

Lardo turned her head, leaning back far enough that she knew she was in imminent danger of falling back to the ground. Johnson’s words rarely ever made sense, or sometimes they did in that nagging way in the back of your head. Like there was something she was forgetting and if she could just turn her head the right way she could reconnect with the memory and everything he’d ever said would fall into place.

It felt a bit like a ‘stare into the void and the void will stare back’ situation though, and something told her that perhaps it was for the best that she didn’t squint too much in that direction.

So instead of all the questions and comments and concerns she had about the situations, what she said instead was, “You’re a weird guy.”

“Ha, yeah,” Johnson agreed easily with a tilt of his chin. “I get that a lot.”

Lardo leaned to the side, pressing her shoulder hard against Johnson’s forearm. “So, we’re secondary characters, huh?”

“No, just you,” Johnson clarified. “I’m tertiary at best. More of a plot device than a character really.”

Her limbs felt heavy in the night air, and she didn’t know if it was the weight of conversation or a delayed impact from smoking. Maybe she was just tired. “I don’t know if that’s horribly sad or vain honestly. So just to cover all my bases, you’re a pretty great guy Johnson, but you’re not like, that great, so calm down.”

Johnson’s next laugh didn’t sound anything like a breeze, it was loud and sudden, cutting through the night in an unexpected bark. “You’re too kind.”

“I mean it,” she told him. “Like, don’t go thinking you’re, like, crucial to the narrative,” she dropped her voice in an imitation of his that made him make that laugh again. “But, you’re a cool guy. You’re definitely, like, a character. Like if I was writing a book and you were in it, I would definitely give you a cool side story to go on.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Lardo gripped the grass beneath her fingers again, and found that there was only grass beneath one hand. The other was clinging onto muscle, and she couldn’t remember when she had wound her arm around his, but she didn’t feel the need to stop it. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Do you think I’m a good tertiary character?”

“You’re the secondary character, I’m the tertiary,” he corrected. There was a warm weight against the top of her head and through her haze of weed and exhaustion and existential crisis, she recognized it as his cheek. “And I think you’re a great secondary. The best one in the story maybe. A fan favorite for the ages.”

Lardo turned her head, pressing her laugh into his bicep. Belatedly she recognized the catch of her lip against his skin as something probably inappropriate, and the ensuing warmth that rushed down her spine was even more so. She didn’t try to move her mouth away when she spoke. “I hope they think I’m cool. Find all my faults, like, quirky or some shit.”

“I’m sure they do.”

Lardo inhaled hard through her nose and exhaled just as loudly out of her mouth, trying to ground herself in the rhythmic cycle of it. Her hand that was still clutching the grass slowly loosened its grip, crumbled blades falling to the ground as she moved her hand so slowly it felt like she was moving through water, to join the other, curling around Johnson’s arm. He was warm, but not like some of the guys she had cuddled up to in various states of inebriation. He was thrumming with an energy just this side of being alive, warm enough that she knew his heart was pumping but running nowhere near as hot as she thought he should have. It was nice. She told him so.

Johnson, calm and collected and borderline omnipotent Johnson, tensed under her grip. “Thanks,” he said, voice tighter than she had ever heard it.

She tilted her head, ear crushed against the sleeve of his tee shirt as she looked up and up and up to finally make eye contact. His hat was still pulled low, but now she could see the grey of his eyes, blown wide in the shadows of his face. “Are you okay?”

It took him so long to blink, and when he finally did he didn’t look back at her. “I don’t, uh, I don’t think we should do this.”

Something painfully heavy was settling in her chest, caught halfway between not understanding what she was doing and not understanding why she was holding back from it in the first place. She tightened her grip, not strong enough that he couldn’t easily dislodge her if he wanted, but just strong enough that her point was made. When she pulled, he let himself be brought back down so they were both on their backs again. “Do what?”

Johnson tilted his head and made a noise low in his throat that may have been an aborted attempt at a cough.

Lardo twisted underneath his arm, relaxing her grip just enough that she could sneak under it and prop her chin up on his chest. Those grey eyes were looking everywhere but at her, and she felt her fingers itch with the urge to flick his cap off his head. She resisted the temptation, but her fingers knotted themselves in the front of his hoodie instead.

He bit his lip and it was such an un-Johnson like expression that Lardo felt like the world had gone a bit less steady. “This…isn’t a part of the story.”

“It’s not?”

“No.” Johnson swallowed. It made no sound, but she saw his throat move with the effort. “I have a girlfriend.”

“Oh.” That heavy thing in her chest loosened, but it didn’t feel like a weight lifted so much as a balloon deflating. Her hands were too hot and her legs were too cold and the grass was scratchy. “Shit, sorry man, I didn’t mean to make you feel-”

“I mean, I sort of do.”

Lardo paused, one hand on his chest, halfway to pushing herself away from him when she stopped. “What does that mean?”

Johnson blew out another long sigh. “I…it’s complicated. She comes and goes.”

After a moment of deliberation, Lardo hesitantly lowered herself back down onto his chest, staring up at him with as much sharpness as she could muster under the circumstances. “Like, an on again off again thing?”

The grass beneath his head shifted and crunched as he shook it loosely back and forth. “Sort of. More of a coming and going from existence type thing.”

An unattractive sort of snort left her mouth before she could stop it, but she couldn’t be bothered to regret it. “I’ve known people like that.” Her fingers found the ends of his hoodie strings and she idly rolled the plastic ends between her fingers. “Those type of people aren’t good for you man.”

“It’s…complicated.”

Lardo huffed, but it turned into a quiet hum as she felt fingers slide up the back of her neck and across her scalp. His hands were big and tips of his fingers were cold against her skin. “It always is.”

For a moment, or maybe it was more than just one, she contended herself to rest her head on his chest and let him run his fingers across the back of her skull. She shifted more than once, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t feel his heartbeat. Finally, after what was either too long or too short of a pause, she asked; “so, we’re the side characters then? Like, is this right now a part of the main story?”

He breathed low and long in a pale imitation of his usual laugh. “No, I really doubt that.”

“So, it’s just us then. No narrative and no plot line and no character arc to follow. Right?”

“I suppose.”

She moved then, scooching as gracefully as she could manage until her chin was resting on her hands again, placed just above his collarbone. “So, the way I see it then, we can do whatever we want.” He could push her off if he wanted to, could tilt his chin up just the slightest bit and she would leave well enough alone.

“That’s the fun part about being a secondary character,” he told her.

He tilted his head down.

Kissing Johnson was something she would never have admitted to considering, but Lardo had always been a bit of a liar when it came to anything serious. It was every bit as surreal as she had always thought, but not for the same reasons. His mouth was colder than she had expected, and everything about his touch so much softer than she would have thought possible. Even when his mouth opened against hers and she let him take control for a moment, it felt like only the barest of touches.

He pushed her back gently with hands that were too big and too cold and too soft on her skin, and she rolled easily. The back of her shirt hiked up against the grass, blades tickling her skin as one hand framed her face, touch light enough to raise goosebumps on her arms as he adjusted the angle. He was at least a foot taller than her, and she didn’t want to start thinking about how much stronger, but even as he boxed her in she felt like he weighed nothing, like if she opened her eyes she might find herself hallucinating the entire thing back in her own bed. She remembered suddenly, with her hands in his hair and her tongue against his, her private joke about him really being a ghost. Or maybe it just felt like kissing another sketch of an unfinished human being.

Whatever he might be, and whatever she decided she was, undead or unfinished or possibly just coming untethered, Lardo thought she preferred to be a secondary character anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Complaints can be made in the comments or to [**Tumblr**](http://dexondefense.tumblr.com/),


End file.
